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hands into his khaki pockets and jutted his almost-kissed chin toward the bookshelves. As I’d expected, he said, “I’m here to help you prepare for your Friday meeting with Teresa Alison Sidney.”
    “Does everyone call her that?” I asked, letting some of my anxiety spill over as annoyance.
    “Teresa Alison Sidney?” He repeated himself. “That’s her name.”
    “No, I mean, do they always use her first, middle and last name? I’ve only heard her referred to as ‘Teresa Alison Sidney.’ Never just Teresa. Never even Mrs. Sidney. Or Ms. Sidney, if that’s what she prefers. Always the triple name.”
    Neko nodded, as if he agreed with me. He struck a pose and gushed to David, “She’s right, you know. Teresa Alison Sidney. Just like when you’re seated next to a famous person at a banquet. David Hyde Pierce. You don’t feel like you’re allowed to address him by his first name, but you want to stake a claim that you’re closer to him than ‘Mr. Pierce.’ So you spend the entire evening referring to him by all his names, and then, when you tell the story to friends, you have to go on that way, because that’s the way you think of him. ‘When I sat next to David Hyde Pierce…’”
    I stared at Neko for a moment, wondering if he ever had sat next to David Hyde Pierce. Or maybe David Hyde Pierce was just the hero of the moment. Maybe Neko dreamed of sitting next to David Hyde Pierce. Or maybe he was only making a rhetorical point. I turned back to my David. “So, is that it? She’s a famous person?”
    “Well, she is that. At least within the Covens. She’s headed up the Washington Coven for nearly twenty-five years. She’s served three terms on Hecate’s Court.”
    “How old is she?” I immediately aged Whistler’s Mother, pushing her into her nineties, to the outer edges of frail existence.
    He smirked. “Suffice to say, Teresa Alison Sidney got an early start on her career.”
    “Can you be a bit more specific? Is she in her sixties?” I redrew poor Whistler’s Mother again, easing her wrinkles and giving her a red hat and a purple blouse to brighten her day.
    “She’s thirty-five.”
    “What?”
    “She’s thirty-five years old.”
    “But you just said she’s headed the Coven for nearly twenty-five years.”
    “She has. She was something of a…prodigy. She’s got strong powers, and she knows how to use them.”
    I swallowed hard. Thirty-five years old and the leader of the group of witches I aspired to join.
    You know, I wouldn’t have worried if she’d been ancient. We were all supposed to respect the elderly, offer them our seats on the subway, laugh at their jokes. I had almost managed to convince myself that being summoned in front of the Coven would be no worse than dropping in on Gran’s Board meeting for the concert opera guild. I knew how to prove myself to people who were older than I was.
    But thirty-five years old? That was younger than Clara! Younger than my own mother. Barely five years older than I was!
    “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    Why didn’t I tell you? David sounded exasperated. “I’ve been trying to tell you about the Coven for months. You’re the one who always changes the topic of conversation.”
    “I don’t change topics of conversation,” I retorted. “Just the other day, at work, Evelyn told me that I have the most stick-to-it-iveness of any librarian at the Peabridge. She said she was impressed by my developing a lecture series, and she’d like to grow it into—”
    David cocked his head to one side, sparing the half smile that I’d come to learn meant he was feeling quietly superior. “Not changing the topic of conversation?” he asked.
    “No. I was about to come back to Teresa Alison Sidney. And her age.”
    David frowned. “Does that really matter?”
    I looked down at my hands, realized that I had clenched them into tight fists. Consciously, I took a deep breath and relaxed my claws. “No!” I said brightly.